Your teachers may ask you to complete different activities on articles. You can complete activities on newsela.com or on the Newsela mobile app.
Students can access their teachers' assignments on the Assignments page. To access the page,
Sign in to Newsela
Click assignments.
Select the assignment you'd like to work on. Newer assignments appear at the top of the page. All assignments that you have not viewed will say "New."
Select an option below to see how to complete and submit different types of work.
Reading
What you can see
You can read any article on Newsela, unless your teacher has hidden it from your class.
Most Newsela articles are available at five reading levels. You will see the level closest to your just-right reading level first. You also have the option to change it if what you're reading is too easy or too hard. Your teacher can assign a single level to your class, which means you must finish the assigned level's quiz before you can adjust the level.
What your teacher can see
Your teacher will automatically be able to see how much time you spent reading the article at each reading level. You do not have to take any additional actions on Newsela to let your teacher know that you have read the article.
Annotations
Teachers and students can highlight and annotate articles. Your teacher may leave annotations on the article with questions or instructions for you, or they may ask you to make your own annotations. Teachers and students can see and respond to each other's annotations.
How students make annotations:
Highlight text. An annotations box will appear.
In the annotations box, select a color and enter your annotation.
Your annotation will automatically be saved and shared with your teacher(s).
You can make unique annotations for each level of the article. Annotations only appear at the reading level at which they are made.
Quizzes
Each article has a 4-question quiz at each reading level.
To take and submit a quiz, follow these steps:
Go to an article and select the level at which you will read and take the quiz. Students can take the quiz at every level of an article.
Open the Activities panel by clicking Activities in the upper right-hand corner.
Click Quiz.
If the article has two or more quizzes, check the instructions to see which quiz your teacher would like you to take.
Select your answers. Move between questions by clicking Next and Back.
Click Submit.
You will see your score and your teacher(s) will see your quiz score in the Binder.
Writing Responses
Each article has a writing prompt. To submit a writing response, follow these steps:
Go to an article.
Open the Activities panel by clicking Activities in the upper right-hand corner.
Click Write.
Select the class for your response.
Enter your response. Your work will be autosaved.
Click Submit Response. Your teacher will now see your writing response in their Binder.
Citing Newsela articles: Find the original publication source and author by going to the MAX level. You'll see the original source and author under the title. Use this information to cite the article in your preferred format. Newsela recommends adding "Edited by Newsela Staff" when citing articles at the MAX level and "Adapted by Newsela Staff" when citing articles at other levels.
Power Words
Some articles have Power Words activities. To submit Power Words activities, follow these steps:
Go to an article and select the level at which you will read and complete the Power Words activities. You can complete Power Words activities at every level of an article.
Open the Activities panel by clicking Activities in the upper right-hand corner.
Click Power Words.
Select your answer. Move to the next question by clicking Check Answer and then Continue.
Click Finish.
You will see your score and your teacher(s) will now see your Power Words points in the Binder.
Checks for Understanding
Completing checks for understanding:
Students must answer each check for understanding correctly in order to continue on in the text
As a low-stakes scaffold, students will have unlimited tries to correctly answer each question
checks for understanding must be completed first, only when they are completed will the rest of the activities on the assignment become available
Guided Highlighting
Students will be given an AI-generated prompt that aligns to a key literacy skill and be asked to highlight a portion of the text that best represents that reading skill.
Students will have 2 tries to complete each prompt before the answer will be automatically shown to them.
If your teacher assigned checks for understanding on the same assignment, you will need to first complete the checks for understanding activity before guided highlighting will become available to you